After my graduation from the Ohio State University last June, I planned on freelancing to support myself financially while I played and toured with my band, The Pinstripes. I figured since I’m only 22 years old, there’s no rush to get into a full time, 40 hour a week job. Freelancing has been increasingly popular in the graphic design world in the past few years due to easy accessibility and connectivity to anyone in the world via the internet. I thought I would give it a try and use a website to promote myself and my work. I started designing and coding my website around early December of 2009, and by early January of the new year, it was launched. I was using Google Analytics to track my visitors and hit counts. For the first few weeks I was getting 20 or 30 hits a day, nothing spectacular, and most of them were my friends or family, not anyone that was hiring for freelance work.
This about the time I realized the power of the blog-o-sphere. I started submitting my website to design inspiration blogs and other sites dedicated to graphic design inspiration. They ranged from very open-ended sites that promote all types of good design, to sites that feature very specific categories of graphic design, such as information graphics, logo design, website design, motion design, etc. I submitted to a dozen or so of these sites, hoping for a few extra hits each day to attract possible clients for freelance work. After the first day of submissions, I was receiving 400-500 hits a day, a huge bump from the original 20-30. From there, my work and website spread to even more blogs and design sites. My work was becoming viral in the design world. About a week after I submitted to the initial dozen design blogs, I was getting 1500+ hits a day, from all over the world. I was receiving numerous emails for freelance work, but also full time opportunities with some rather big name companies that saw my work floating around on these popular design blogs.
After graduation, I was not looking for a full time job. I was looking for freelance jobs to get me by financially, but nothing to tie me down to any location or schedule since my commitments were on the side of my band. All of the full time opportunities I received were turned down because I wasn’t looking for full time, and I didn’t feel like the opportunities were worth it quit the band and relocate to a new city. The band has been such an important part of my life the past 5+ years and it would take something extraordinary for me to leave the band. Approximately a month after my site and work started to spread, I received an email from Adobe XD seeking a recent college graduate for a full time interactive design position. Other companies I was receiving offers from were easy to turn down, however, when Adobe contacted me, I knew I had to explore this option further. After a few phone interviews followed by flying out to San Francisco to interview, I was offered the job, which I took enthusiastically.
It’s strange to think that I’m taking a job with Adobe when only a few months ago, that was the last thing I imagined would happen. By putting myself and my work onto the web, I was offered an amazing job for a company with such high standards for design, not to mention the #11 company in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to work for in 2009. A great deal of energy and time went into the design and production of my website (coding at all hours of the day, fixing bugs, perfecting every pixel on the screen), however, once it was complete, very little effort went into job search, and I was lucky to receive such a great offer. It’s very surreal looking back on the past few months. From looking for a few freelance clients to get me by, to receiving great freelance job offers, to receiving full time position offers, to accepting one of those offers, and finally moving to San Francisco in June all from sending a few emails to popular design blogs and inspiration galleries. This scenario applies to visual fields of work like graphic design, however, I would imagine it could apply to whatever you do, visual or otherwise. If you care about your work, produce good results, and have the ability to spread it around for all to see, good things will come.
I need an apartment. Help me out?
